Researchers at the Academic Medical Centers

March 11, 2015 – Barbara H. Iglewski, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry will be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame later this year, an incredible honor that puts her aside women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony, former first lady Betty Ford, and founder of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Nancy Brinker.

March 5, 2015 – Dr. Harold Varmus, director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and co-winner of the Nobel Prize, will join Weill Cornell Medical College’s faculty as the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine, effective April 1. In conjunction with his appointment at Weill Cornell, Dr. Varmus, internationally recognized for his research on retroviruses and the genetic basis of cancer, will team up with the New York Genome Center (NYGC) as a Senior Associate Core Member to promote the use of cancer genomics throughout the New York region.

Funds for Research

March 17, 2015 – Families and friends of childhood cancer patients past and present, as well as Albany Medical Center staff, raised $94,840 for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation at an event Sunday at the Westmere Fire Department.

March 3, 2015 – Last night 780 guests attended the Finding A Cure for Epilepsy and Seizures (FACES) Gala, held at Pier Sixty at Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers. Over $4.7 million was raised at the event to support epilepsy research and the advancement of new therapies at NYU Langone Medical Center. Hosting the event was Mike Myers, world-famous actor, comedian, screenwriter, and film producer who is best known for his appearances on Saturday Night Live, and for his roles in the Austin Powers and Shrek films.

Precision Medicine for Kids with Cancer: At Columbia, Every Pediatric Tumor is Sequenced

March 16, 2015 – Every pediatric cancer patient at Columbia University Medical Center benefits from genome sequencing of the tumor. Using technologies that have until now been largely restricted to research use and have taken many months to process, the Precision in Pediatric Sequencing (PIPseq) program provides results to the patient’s doctor in less than three weeks. That is the latest advance from one of the nation’s oldest programs for children with cancer and blood disorders.

Immunotherapy: New Hope for Patients with Advanced Lung Cancer

March 12, 2015 – In the late 1800s, a New York surgeon named William Coley noticed that some patients with cancer seemed to fare better if they developed an infection after undergoing surgery. Suspecting that the immune system played a role in this mysterious response, he tried treating cancer patients with bacteria in an effort to turn on the immune system. Coley’s bold experiments largely failed, however, and faded into obscurity as other cancer treatments, such as radiation and chemotherapy, were put into practice.

Geography Matters: Imaging Overuse Seen for Breast & Prostate Cancer in Certain Regions Across the U.S.

March 12, 2015 – Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, in a new retrospective study publishing online March 12 in JAMA Oncology, conclude that patients with low-risk prostate or breast cancer were more or less likely to receive inappropriate imaging during treatment, depending on the region of the country in which they received medical care.

Imaging Test Detect Coronary Artery Disease Long Before it Strikes

March 17, 2015 – Adding two non-invasive imaging tests to traditional cardiovascular disease risk factor assessment more precisely predicts a healthy patient’s future risk of heart attack, stroke, or premature death, according to a study led by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published in the March 24 edition of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

March 16, 2015 – Most physicians are aware of the importance of lifestyle factors in preventing cardiovascular disease (CVD)–and believe diet is as important as statin therapy and exercise, according to a new survey from NYU Langone Medical Center.

Pollution Levels Linked to Stroke-Related Narrowing of Arteries

March 16, 2015 – The scientists analyzed medical test records for more than 300,000 people living in New York, New Jersey, or Connecticut. They found that people living in zip codes with the highest average levels of fine-particulate-matter pollution were significantly more likely to show signs of narrowing (stenosis) in their internal carotid arteries, compared to those living in zip codes with the lowest pollution levels.

March 16, 2015 – New study results by The Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSN) show the addition of surgical ablation during mitral valve surgery reduces the occurrence of atrial fibrillation in patients.

March 15, 2015 – New study results by The Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network (CTSN) show the addition of surgical ablation during mitral valve surgery reduces the occurrence of atrial fibrillation in patients.

March 5, 2015 – NYU Langone Medical Center has announced the creation of a new multidisciplinary Venous Thromboembolic Center (VTEC) to treat those with life-threating blood clot
. The new VTEC delivers advanced detection, comprehensive care and effective management for patients experiencing a venous thromboembolic event.

March 10, 2015 – Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have designed a new type of vaccine that could be the first-ever for preventing genital herpes—one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, affecting some 500 million people worldwide. By using a counterintuitive scientific approach, researchers were able to prevent both active and latent infections caused by herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), the virus that causes genital herpes. Findings from the research, conducted in mice, were published today in the online journal eLife.

New Quality Measures Approved for Childhood Sleep Apnea

March 13, 2015 – A work group of physicians from leading academic medical centers across the country, including NYU Langone Medical Center, has developed new quality measures for the detection and treatment of childhood obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a potentially morbid, life-altering condition that affects hundreds of thousands of children and adolescents nationwide. The measures, commissioned and endorsed by the American Association of Sleep Medicine (AASM), are published on March 15 in a special section of The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.

Simple Sideline Test Shown Effective in Diagnosing Concussion in Student Athletes as Young as 5 Years Old

March 5, 2015 – New research from the NYU Langone Concussion Center finds that a simple eye test, which can be administered in less than two minutes, can effectively diagnose a concussion and help determine whether a student athlete as young as 5 years old should return to a game.

March 2, 2015 – Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that navigational brain cells that help sense direction are as electrically active during deep sleep as they are during wake time—and have visual and vestibular cues to guide them. Such information could be useful in treating navigational problems, among the first major symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.

Risk Patterns Identified that Make People More Vulnerable to PTSD

March 16, 2015 – Researchers have built a new computational tool that identifies 800 different ways people are at increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), permitting for the first time a personalized prediction guide.

Kidney Transplant Tolerance Mechanism Identified

March 16, 2015 – Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have pinpointed the immune system mechanism that allows a kidney transplant to be accepted without lifelong immunosuppressive drugs, a significant step toward reducing or eliminating the need for costly and potentially toxic immunosuppressant drugs and improving long-term transplant success. The findings were published in the Jan. 28 online issue of Science Translational Medicine

Novel Drug Candidate Regenerates Pancreatic Cells Lost in Diabetes

March 9, 2015 – In a screen of more than 100,000 potential drugs, only one, harmine, drove human insulin-producing beta cells to multiply, according to a study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, funded by JDRF and the National Institutes of Health, and published online today in Nature Medicine.

Pyshicatry Finds its Stride and Shows Potential for Making Progress

March 6, 2015 – Few fields of medicine are as misunderstood as psychiatry. The field predates the technology needed to truly understand the brain, so for decades psychiatry existed as an unscientific discipline, lacking an empirical foundation. Also, the definition of “mental illness” has been susceptible to cultural variability and has changed with time, revealing more about the prejudices of an era than the true nature of the illness. Homosexuality, for example, was defined as a mental disorder in the DSM until 1974. This combination of factors provided fertile ground for charlatans and purveyors of pseudoscience.